The Federal Court will decide if the widow of a key witness in the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder trial can claim financial losses from a carpet dealer linked to the case. – Reuters file pic, January 25, 2016.
A suit filed in 2014 by the widow of a key witness in the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder trial, for losses suffered following the family’s five-year exile, is unlikely to be heard any time soon in the High Court.
This is after carpet dealer Deepak Jaikishan filed an appeal in the Federal Court to overturn the Court of Appeal ruling which ordered a trial to determine the veracity of A. Santamil Selvi’s claim.
Santamil’s counsel Americk Sidhu told The Malaysian Insider that prominent lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah would now be handling Deepak’s case.
He said three legal questions have been suggested for leave to appeal the case.
Americk said case management was fixed on February 5 but he would write to the court registry to adjourn the matter as he would be overseas.
In the last hearing before the Court of Appeal, lawyer Wan Azmir Wan Majid from the legal firm Hafarizan Wan & Aisha Mubarak appeared for Deepak.
On December 18 last year, a three-man Court of Appeal bench chaired by Vernon Ong Lam Kiat ruled that Santamil’s RM2 million suit could be filed in her personal capacity.
Santamil, widow of private investigator P. Balasubramaniam, is suing Deepak over his role with seven others in sending her family into exile to India for five years from 2008.
Among the seven are Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor.
Ong said the allegations of conspiracy in Santamil’s statement of claim had merit.
“The allegations are subject to be proven at the trial in High Court,” Ong said.
Santamil filed the suit on behalf of the estate of Balasubramaniam, who died of a heart attack on March 15, 2013, soon after his return from India.
The suit would expose the roles of several people in sending Santamil’s family into exile following controversies surrounding two statutory declarations by Balasubramaniam involving Altantuya and Najib.
This included why Balasubramaniam was forced to retract his first sworn statement highlighting Najib’s alleged involvement with Altantuya, and why he and his family were forced to leave the country.
High Court judge Datuk Hasnah Mohamed Hashim in December 2014 allowed an application by Najib, Rosmah, the prime minister’s brothers Datuk Johari and Datuk Nazim, senior lawyer Tan Sri Cecil Abraham, his son Sunil Abraham, commissioner for oaths Zainal Abidin Muhayat and lawyer M. Arulampalam to strike out the widow’s suit.
Hasnah said Santamil lacked the capacity to file for action on behalf of her husband’s estate and her pleadings were not according to law.
Both the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court upheld the High Court decision on the grounds that Santamil’s notice of appeal was defective.
However, Deepak was not a respondent in Santamil’s appeal in the Court of Appeal.
Deepak said he was not a voluntary party to strike out Santamil’s suit in the High Court.
In the suit, the family said the defendants, including Deepak, caused Balasubramaniam’s second statutory declaration to be drafted without instructions from him and further caused him to sign it “under threat and inducement”.
Balasubramaniam and his family left Malaysia after he signed the second statutory declaration in 2008 to denounce the first one he made the day before.
The second statement cleared Najib of any involvement in the case.
- TMI
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